Like Magic
by goldenwalnut
Summary: Katniss's mundane world is turned upside when Peeta Mellark, wizard, enters her life. AU; set in Potter-verse.
1. Prologue

Like Magic - Prologue

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Disclaimer: This is a work of fan fiction; all familiar characters/fictional settings are not mine.

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She was eating her lunch when she noticed that she was being watched. Between indelicate bites of watercress and chicken salad, Katniss Everdeen spied a fleeting glimpse of brightest blue. She narrowed her eyes at the young man who had suddenly hidden his face behind a magazine – and wait, did the picture on the front cover just move? But no, that was impossible.

Irritated, she dispatched her sandwich quickly and paid her bill before hurrying out of the café.

She made it back to work at the Abernathy's Sporting Goods Shop and was busy restocking a table of novelty, colored golf balls when she felt a pair of eyes on her again. That familiar feeling of irritation and uneasiness returned and she whirled around to see … nothing. A father and his teenaged son were discussing football cleat options by the shoe counter. A kindly looking, older gentleman was checking out fishing tackle at the register.

But the front door slammed closed and she saw the back of a blonde head rushing into the street in haste.

She grit her teeth and set the rest of the merchandise out with a little more force than perhaps she meant to.

The young man didn't return for the rest of the day and she forgot about him when she was closing up shop that night. She waved goodbye to Clove, the girl who worked the registers that day, and was left alone to cut the lights and lock up.

She was pulling the key out of the door when she heard a noise behind her, followed by a brief flash of light, and her defenses immediately reared up. She fumbled in her purse for her defense spray and squared her feet, ready to run.

"Come out!" she yelled into the dark, pointedly deserted alley and in the back of her mind, she was vaguely proud that her voice only shook a little. "I heard you, I know you're there!"

And sure enough, a figure hesitantly emerged from the shadows. She was not surprised to see it was the towheaded fellow from earlier and she cursed herself for letting her guard down and not minding the possibility of his reappearance.

"You," she said, sizing him up. He was sturdily built and very obviously could overpower her, but she was quick on her feet and could probably outrun him. "You're the creep from earlier – don't come any closer!" She pointed the spray squarely at him.

"H-hang on," he said, putting his hands up in a display of submission. "I don't mean you any harm."

She _was_ surprised at how oddly pleasing his voice sounded to her and this only raised her hackles further. Still, something stopped her from unleashing the entire contents of the defense spray can into his face and fleeing outright.

Something wasn't exactly quite right about his appearance; he was dressed bizarrely, wearing a lumpy looking green jumper over a luridly yellow and red striped shirt. And he could very well be wearing _bowling shoes_ on his feet. ("_Is he an escaped mental patient?" _she thought wildly.) But despite the strange way he dressed and the overall strangeness of their meeting, cornering her in a dark alley like this, he seemed rather harmless – and Katniss generally had a pretty good instinct about when her life was being threatened, having been born with an abnormally good sense of self-preservation. She forced herself to slow her breathing and calm her rapidly beating heart, but kept the can at the ready at the end of her outstretched arm.

"I'm sorry to alarm you like this," the man continued slowly, "but I think I just saved your life."


	2. Chapter 1

Like Magic - Chapter 1

Peeta Mellark had been working at the Auror Department of the Ministry of Magic for exactly nine months now. This meant that the preliminary stages of his training were over and that they were letting him out on his own now to deal with minor cases in the field independently. Minor cases evidently meant pest control to his superiors, and this was how he found himself stalking a lethifold into the shadows of the bins outside of a Muggle sporting goods shop.

The creature had been wrecking havoc for days by the time reports had landed on his desk earlier in the week. Regrettably, an otherwise perfectly healthy Chihuahua had been found by its distraught owners, ostensibly smothered to death. There were also reports of Muggles who woke in a terror, feeling as though they were being suffocated in their sleep, only to have the sensation suddenly disappear at the first flicker of light. Muggles notoriously had a way of ignoring the obvious when it came to magical manifestations that occurred right before their eyes and, of course, none of them had seen the shroud-like lethifold exactly. But the descriptions fit the profile of the creatures nonetheless, and so Peeta was assigned his very first solo case.

Thankfully there hadn't been any wind of human casualties yet, and this suggested to both Peeta and Boggs, his superior, that the lethifold was a juvenile. A perfect first assignment for the Junior Auror.

It was early morning, however, and the creature had snaked itself into the shrinking shadows of the empty alleyway, just out of his reach. And there it would likely stay until night fell; he suspected it had wedged itself underneath the building somehow and lethifolds only hunted at night. _Dammit_.

He stiffened suddenly at the sound of jingling keys and someone's shoes clacking the cobblestone around the corner and ducked immediately behind a pile of boxes and crates. As the person approached into his field of vision, he felt his chest constrict oddly and thought for a brief and wild moment that the lethifold had managed to get him in a moment of vulnerability.

But no. It was only that he had laid eyes on the most beautiful girl he'd ever encountered (and that was saying something; he'd just had a crash course in veela three weeks ago). She wasn't beautiful in a loud way; she wore no makeup and had her dark hair braided simply, away from her face. She wore plain colored Muggle clothing – a white t-shirt and khaki slacks – and had a nametag pinned to her shirt, identifying her as Katniss.

"_Katniss," _he repeated reverently in his head.

She was humming softly under her breath to a tune he couldn't quite make out, but it may well have been the loveliest thing he'd ever heard. It reminded him fleetingly of the mermaid painting in the prefects' bathroom from his school days at Hogwarts. That's what she was, a beautiful siren drawing him into her spell as he crouched uncomfortably between the brick wall of the alley and a box marked "Speedo" on the side.

She unlocked the back door of the shop and disappeared inside, completely unaware of his presence.

Peeta slumped haunch first onto the cold cobblestone. He was a goner. He was in trouble.

He spent the rest of the day surreptitiously sneaking glances at her and blending in with the Muggle crowd.

"She works here," he reasoned to himself. "My assignment is here. I'm getting the lay of the land. It's for her safety."

He watched her take her lunch at a café down the street and hastily buried his nose in a copy of _Wizard Weekly_ when she cast her grey-eyed gaze on him sitting not two tables away. He dropped a ten-pound note on the table for his tea (he could never figure out Muggle money) when she left to return to work.

Under the pretense of scanning the store for other magical creepy crawlies, he observed her lining a display table with boxes of small, colorful balls ("_Strange snitches," _he remarked to himself.).

As the sun began to descend, he refocused on the lethifold awaiting the darkness behind the shop. He had noted the other girl working with Katniss left through the front door as Katniss closed up for the day. That meant she was in there alone and when she left, the lethifold could very well mark her for its prey.

Wand at the ready, Peeta slowly walked into the alley where he had last seen the creature. The last vestiges of sunlight were slowly seeping away and he saw a flutter of blackest black out of the corner of his eye. It was here.

Lethifolds were susceptible only to the Patronus charm, he knew. No other magic would harm it and even light would not deter a full-grown lethifold. And a Patronus would only stun it; he would have to kill it by hand.

The creature was gliding along the ground weirdly, like an inky cape slinking of its own accord toward him. It slid almost lazily back and forth, as though it was sizing him up. He was somewhat relieved to see that it was indeed a juvenile, spanning perhaps two feet across. Still, it was large enough, considering that this was the first he would have to face completely on his own with no supervision.

"Happy thoughts, happy thoughts," he murmured under his breath.

The lethifold lunged toward him in a sudden movement and drew back just as quickly. It was testing him. He wanted to jump, but steeled himself. He could do this.

He drew all the happy thoughts that came to mind and thought about them hard. Mixing paint the color of sunsets. Flying. Playing quidditch with his brothers. _Katniss_ …

The Patronus burst forth from his wand, stunning the lethifold as he had hoped and it stopped short in its tracks to be blown backwards into the wall. It looked as though it was struggling and Peeta acted quickly, drawing an enchanted pocketknife out of his jeans. He shredded the lethifold from one end to the other and it fluttered uselessly onto the ground like so much destroyed fabric.

He grinned. Success!

But the smile slid off his face when he heard a voice behind him. _Her_ voice. Oh no.

"Come out! I heard you, I know you're there!" she called with a tremor in her voice.

He didn't want to startle her so he slipped his wand into his back pocket, slowly stepped into the dim lamplight, and tried to look as non-magical as possible.

"You," she said, as though recognizing him. "You're the creep from earlier – don't come any closer!"

Peeta felt his ears grow hot. Perhaps he hadn't been as stealthy as he had hoped. He winced at the word "creep." But it wasn't as though he could have talked to her; they weren't supposed to engage Muggles on the job …

She pointed a small, tube-shaped object at him, a Muggle weapon? And he spoke to her now.

"Hang on," he said meekly. "I don't mean you any harm." And he didn't. He didn't want to have to defuse the situation with magic and he didn't want to have to place a memory charm on her. He wanted to calm her, for she did look frightened, and the situation that he now found himself in did not paint him in the most flattering of lights.

Here he was, standing with a dead lethifold at his feet, staring at the most beautiful Muggle – no, most beautiful girl, Muggle or witch – he'd ever seen, whom he'd apparently cornered alone in a dark and lonely alleyway. So he started again.

"I'm sorry to alarm you like this, but I think I just saved your life." Which was Merlin's honest truth.

Her eyebrows furrowed deeply and she somehow managed to look captivatingly pretty even doing this. "What do you mean? Explain," she demanded, still pointing her weapon at him.

He battled internally with himself, his responsibility to his whole world as outlined by the International Statute of Wizarding Secrecy warring with a sudden and intense desire to disclose his every secret to her. He opened and closed his mouth several times, trying to compose what to say. He was going to tell her, tell her everything, he couldn't help it –

"_Obliviate_!" a deep male voice bellowed behind him and Katniss crumpled to a pitiful heap on the ground. Peeta felt as though his heart had exploded all over his ribcage.

"Mellark!" Boggs thundered. "Where the hell have you been? You haven't check in all day. I was beginning to worry!"


End file.
